Western Imperialism in the Middle East 1914-1958

Western Imperialism in the Middle East 1914-1958
Author: D. K. Fieldhouse
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2006-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191536962

The term 'Fertile Crescent' is commonly used as shorthand for the group of territories extending around the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Here it is assumed to consist of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Palestine. Much has been written on the history of these countries which were taken from the Ottoman empire after 1918 and became Mandates under the League of Nations. For the most part the histories of these countries have been handled either individually or as part of the history of Britain or France. In the first instance the emphasis has normally been on the development of nationalism and local resistance to alien control in a particular territory, leading to the modern successor state. In the second most studies have concentrated separately on how either France or Britain handled the great problems they inherited, seldom comparing their strategies. The aim of this book is to see the region as a whole and from both the European and indigenous points of view. The central argument is that the mandate system failed in its stated purpose of establishing stable democratic states out of what had been provinces or parts of provinces within the Ottoman empire. Rather it generated basically unstable polities and, in the special case of Palestine, one totally unresolved, and possibly unsolvable, conflict. The result was to leave the Middle East as perhaps the most volatile part of the world in the later twentieth century and beyond. The main purpose of the book is to examine why this was so.

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
Author: Rashid Khalidi
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1627798544

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process. Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.

The Roots of Separatism in Palestine

The Roots of Separatism in Palestine
Author: Barbara J. Smith
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1993-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780815625780

A thorough analysis of the economic development of Palestine during the first years of British mandatory rule and, in particular, of the British government's preferential policy regarding Jewish settlement and enterprise sets the tone for this groundbreaking study. Using a wealth of previously unpublished documentation, the author proves that British mandatory policy provided the perfect environment for the growth of a largest and more homogeneous Zionist enclave, which in turn led to the inevitable split in Palestine's economy.

Britain and the Arab Middle East

Britain and the Arab Middle East
Author: Robert H. Lieshout
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2016-07-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 085772729X

The profound effects of the British Empire's actions in the Arab World during the First World War can be seen echoing through the history of the 20th century. The uprising sparked by the Husayn-McMahon correspondence and led by 'Lawrence of Arabia'; the Sykes-Picot agreement which undermined that rebellion; and memoranda such as the Balfour Declaration all have shaped the Middle East into forms which would have been unrecognizable to the diplomats of the 19th century. Undertaken during the First 'World' War, these actions were not part of a coordinated British strategy, but in fact directed by several overlapping and competing departments, some imperfectly referred to as the 'Arab Bureau'. The British and the Middle East is unique in its comprehensive treatment of how and why the British generals and diplomats acted as they did. By taking as his starting point the voluminous, contradictory and revealing records of the policy-makers in the British government, Robert H. Lieshout shows convincingly that many concerned with foreign policy making were quite oblivious to the history and complexities of the Islamic World.Covering the full sweep of British involvement in Arabia, Lieshout makes a lasting contribution to our understanding of the period in which the British Empire changed the world, and shows how shallow and confused the understanding of those that shaped the future of the Middle East really was.

British Imperialism

British Imperialism
Author: P.J. Cain
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 543
Release: 2014-01-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317873521

A milestone in the understanding of British history and imperialism, and truly global in its reach, this magisterial account received numerous accolades from reviewers in its first edition. The first to coin the phrase "gentlemanly capitalism", Cain and Hopkins make the strong and provocative argument that it is impossible to understand the nature and evolution of British imperialism without taking account of the peculiarities of her economic development. In particular, the growth of the financial sector - and above all, the City of London - played a crucial role in shaping the course of British history and Britain's relations overseas. Now with a substantive new introduction and a conclusion, the scope of the original account has been widened to include an innovative discussion of globalization.

Politics in Post-Revolutionary Turkey, 1908-1913

Politics in Post-Revolutionary Turkey, 1908-1913
Author: Aykut Kansu
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2021-11-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004491821

This book is about domestic politics following the Revolution of 1908 in Turkey. Although seemingly straightforward in its telling of events from the opening of the Parliament in alte 1908 to the re-capture of constitutional government in early 1913, this book is built upon a premise that is fundamentally different from previous studies. Whereas previous studies deal with the period as if conditions were normalised immediately after the Revolution of 1908, this book takes the view that the period under scrutiny is a relentless struggle over the political future of Turkey. The Revolution of 1908 was no mere "restoration" of the Constitution of 1876. It tried to bring about a fundamental change in the political structure of Turkey. In more senses than one, the Revolution brought about the end of the Ottoman Empire. If the Ottoman Empire stood for everything that reminded one of absolutism and the practices associated with it, "Young Turkey" represented a radical break with that past. A modern, centralised state actively engaged in both promoting capitalist relations of production in the economy, and upholding a parliamentary form of government in politics replaced the absolutist state symbolised in the autocratic personality of Abdülhamid II. The political history of the period from late 1908 to early 1913 reflects the constant struggle between the proponents of the new regime working through, and depending upon, the newly created parliament, and the monarchist forces who aimed at restoring the ancien régime at all costs. One cannot but observe that this is no ordinary parliamentary struggle of two opposing political groups to capture political power through mutually agreed upon principles of liberal democratic politics. Although a superficial look at parliamentary debates and press reports might give that impression, a closer scrutiny of the content of those debates and the reason for, as well as the nature of, the arguments and disagreements show it with absolute clarity that here was a case of a continuous struggle between the old, absolutist mentality and the new, liberal worldview.

The Jewish Legion during the First World War

The Jewish Legion during the First World War
Author: M. Watts
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2004-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0230514545

In the autumn of 1917, the British government established three batallions of infantry, for the reception of non-nationalized Russian Jews. Known colloquially as the Jewish Legion, the batallions served in Egypt and Palestine, before their eventual disbandment in the late spring of 1921. By drawing on the testimonies of over 600 veterans, this unique unit is analyzed from within its political and social context, thus providing fresh insights into Anglo-Jewish relations during the early twentieth century.

Spies in Arabia

Spies in Arabia
Author: Priya Satia
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2008-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 019971598X

At the dawn of the twentieth century, British intelligence agents began to venture in increasing numbers to the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire, a region of crucial geopolitical importance spanning present-day Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. They were drawn by the twin objectives of securing the land route to India and finding adventure and spiritualism in a mysterious and ancient land. But these competing desires created a dilemma: how were they to discreetly and patriotically gather facts in a region they were drawn to for its legendary inscrutability and by the promise of fame and escape from Britain? In this groundbreaking book, Priya Satia tracks the intelligence community's tactical grappling with this problem and the myriad cultural, institutional, and political consequences of their methodological choices during and after the Great War. She tells the story of how an imperial state in thrall to the cultural notions of equivocal agents and beset by an equally captivated and increasingly assertive mass democracy invented a wholly new style of "covert empire" centered on the world's first brutal aerial surveillance regime in Iraq. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources--from the fictional to the recently declassified--this book explains how Britons reconciled genuine ethical scruples with the actual violence of their Middle Eastern empire. As it vividly demonstrates how imperialism was made fit for an increasingly democratic and anti-imperial world, what emerges is a new interpretation of the military, cultural, and political legacies of the Great War and of the British Empire in the twentieth century. Unpacking the romantic fascination with "Arabia" as the land of espionage, Spies in Arabia presents a stark tale of poetic ambition, war, terror, and failed redemption--and the prehistory of our present discontents.

Land of Progress

Land of Progress
Author: Jacob Norris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2013-04-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199669368

A study of Palestine in the early twentieth century that takes a step back from the intricacies of the Arab-Zionist conflict, focusing instead on the country's position within the broader history of empire and anti-colonial resistance.